The currently most common method for manufacturing a 3D display is as follows. A panel of a flat display is used, and combines with an optical element being a lenticular plate of a parallax barrier. According to the design of the optical element, different pixels on the panel of the flat display are guided to different directions, which converge in a space to form a specific area called a view-zone. The pixels are divided into a plurality of groups according to the directions to which the pixels are guided, and the number of groups is the number of view-zones. When left and right eyes of a viewer are in adjacent view-zones, a stereoscopic impression is obtained. The manner is called a parallax type 3D display.
For the parallax type 3D display of the manner, design is based on the view-zone, and images of different perspectives converge on corresponding view-zone points, so that parallax is incurred to the two eyes, and the stereoscopic impression is produced. The design achieves an optimal viewing effect on designed view points, but outside the designed view points, the stereoscopic visual effect deteriorates rapidly. When the number of the designed view-zones is small, rapid and violent fluctuation often causes motion parallax to be flipping severely. Additionally, a spatial location of an object changes as a location of the viewer changes, and the feature is likely to incur comfortlessness and an unnatural impression during the viewing.
In order to eliminate discontinuity of the parallax type 3D display, an integral imaging 3D display employs a different display principle. Different from the optical design of concentrating light, in which pixel images of the same group converge on the other side of a screen to produce view-zones, the integral imaging 3D display adopts an optical design concept of parallel light. Each unit pitch of an optical element in a horizontal direction is an integer multiple of a pixel size in the horizontal direction, and a convergence point of rays emitted by screen image pixels through a plurality of micro cylindrical lenses is used to display an object point. Pixel images of the same group are all emitted to the front of the screen in parallel. The rays are all parallel and overlap, so that a stable stereoscopic visual effect is achieved, and the phenomenon, in which image quality fluctuates dramatically as the viewer changes the viewing location or an object moves or even deforms as the viewer changes the location thereof, may be avoided. Therefore, motion parallax of the integral imaging 3D display appears to be smoother.